Liver (review)

At that time these redbrick warrens
had been overrun by punks, who lolloped furtively along their balconies,
halting in the stairwells to nibble amphetamines, their soap stiffened mohicans twitching like rabbit ears.

Published in 2008 by Bloosmbury, Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Surface Anatomy of Four Lobes was written by the English author Will Self. A most curious book.
Late 20th century London, compassion, wit and
livers in distress sums it up pretty well.

The copy that I read was a first US edition, the copyright page of which did not specify
whether the work was a collection of stories or a novel. Not until the
last section did I begin to suspect that I was in fact consuming a novel. The reason why for this is the narration— you'll have to read
it for yourself to see what I mean, as I am not about to spoil things
for you here.

The first part deals with the occupants of a private drinking club in
a seedy part of London and is rife with cockney dialect. The second is a
more loving, serious and sad tale of an old woman of strong faith who leaves London to
be euthanized in Zurich after learning that her liver cancer is
terminal. The third is the most baroque and hilarious as it places the
legend of Prometheus and Zeus and Pandora et al in the
context of a modern London advertising agency. The fourth part deals
with junkies waiting to make their daily
score—it crosses over from droll to absurd to sad and back more times
than I could count.